Shalom Meir Tower (, Migdal Shalom Meir; commonly known as Migdal Shalom, ) is an office tower in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first skyscraper built in Israel.

Overview

Shalom Meir Tower was designed by architects Yitzhak Pearlstein, Gideon Ziv, and Meir Levy. Migdal Shalom has 34 floors and stands at a height of .

50,000 cubic meters of concrete, 4,000 tons of steel, 35 km of water pipes, and 500 km of wiring were used in the tower.

When its construction was completed in 1965, it was the tallest building in the Middle East, as well as the tallest in Asia, and rivaled the tallest buildings in Europe in height. It was the last building in Western Asia to be the tallest building in Asia until the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was completed in 2010.

History

The tower was built on the site of the Herzliya Hebrew High School, better known as Herzliya Gymnasium. The school's architecturally and historically significant structure was razed and the school relocated in order to build the tower in 1962. This decision was later regretted and the contour of the Herzliya Gymnasium became the emblem of the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel, which was founded partially as a response to the building's fate.

Construction was carried out by the Meir Brothers, Moshe, Mordechai and Menachem Meir, who named it after their father, Reb Shalom-Shachna Meir, born in Sanok in Galicia. Shalom-Shachna Meir married the daughter of a rich manufacturer from the Romanian region of Moldova, where he lived until 1920, becoming a successful businessman as well as a leader of the local Zionists.

Artwork and exhibits

The ground-floor retail promenade features a mosaic mural by the Israeli artist Nachum Gutman facing another one by David Sharir. The Shalom Tower now houses the Tel Aviv Center comprising a number of permanent and temporary exhibitions dedicated to the beginnings and development of Tel Aviv.

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File:Shalom Meir Tower. 1964.jpg|Migdal Shalom under construction, July 1964

File:Shalom Tower under construction.jpg|Shalom Tower under construction, April 1965

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See also

  • List of tallest buildings in Israel
  • Architecture in Israel
  • Economy of Israel

References

  • Shalom Tower Galleries official website, English page

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